If you do not watch “Mad Men,” you probably do not know the difference between Don Draper and, say, Glen Bishop. So this is something you must understand about the latter: He is a creep.  He is good at creepily hiding in playhouses, creepily calling girls on the phone and creepily leaving lanyard stitchings on their pillows, as gifts, after creepily ransacking their homes. (He is also 14 years old, if that wasn’t clear.) Glen Bishop likes to hang out with Sally Draper—the daughter of Betty Draper, whose hair he once clipped and stored in a treasure box—and he is usually pretty creepy with her, too. Last week, for example, he flirted with Sally by offering her cigarettes and Coca-Cola backwash. When her mom caught them together, he escaped by waddling away, like a three-wheeled toy car low on batteries, making it about 25 strained yards before he started wheezing. Which is why it’s staggering that when he’s not intentionally being creepy, Glen Bishop plays football. The problem here, for us, is that we don’t know much about his time on the gridiron, beside the fact that he wears No. 92 for Ossining High School in 1965. One day, maybe, Sally will cheer him on from the sideline—assuming she doesn’t move to Rye or, you know, Disney World, or something—and we’ll see Glen Bishop in action. Until then, we wait.  To pass the time, then, I’ll start with the most important question: What position does Glen Bishop play? Certainly not one that requires any semblance of speed, which eliminates—well, almost everything. Quarterbacks don’t need wheels, but Ossining would be better off putting its chess club in pads than starting a borderline sociopath behind center. He would be too distracted by cheerleaders (and their pom-poms, probably) to be a kicker or punter. He’s more of a dummy than a defensive lineman. There’s too much responsibility in being a center, and tackles are freaks, but not in the Glen Bishop kind of way.  With a little therapy and a lot of coaching, however, Glen Bishop could be a serviceable guard, given what we know about the boy. When he wants to be, he is protective. (That’s one way to interpret his relationship with Sally.) He has the appropriate body, and his muddy threads prove he’s not afraid to mix it up at the line of scrimmage. We’ve long stopped trying to predict the menacing schemes that run through his head, but while he’s in uniform, the idea of pancaking another human must be tantalizing. He would have to work on his conditioning—more spinach, less Lucky Strike—but who’s to say he couldn’t one day wear a varsity jacket? Even in 1965, no one ever forbid athletes from being creepy. And at the very least, starting Glen Bishop at, oh, left guard would give Ossining’s tailbacks an excuse to run right. That is: away from him.

If you do not watch “Mad Men,” you probably do not know the difference between Don Draper and, say, Glen Bishop. So this is something you must understand about the latter: He is a creep. 

He is good at creepily hiding in playhouses, creepily calling girls on the phone and creepily leaving lanyard stitchings on their pillows, as gifts, after creepily ransacking their homes. (He is also 14 years old, if that wasn’t clear.) Glen Bishop likes to hang out with Sally Draper—the daughter of Betty Draper, whose hair he once clipped and stored in a treasure box—and he is usually pretty creepy with her, too. Last week, for example, he flirted with Sally by offering her cigarettes and Coca-Cola backwash. When her mom caught them together, he escaped by waddling away, like a three-wheeled toy car low on batteries, making it about 25 strained yards before he started wheezing.

Which is why it’s staggering that when he’s not intentionally being creepy, Glen Bishop plays football. The problem here, for us, is that we don’t know much about his time on the gridiron, beside the fact that he wears No. 92 for Ossining High School in 1965. One day, maybe, Sally will cheer him on from the sideline—assuming she doesn’t move to Rye or, you know, Disney World, or something—and we’ll see Glen Bishop in action. Until then, we wait. 

To pass the time, then, I’ll start with the most important question: What position does Glen Bishop play? Certainly not one that requires any semblance of speed, which eliminates—well, almost everything. Quarterbacks don’t need wheels, but Ossining would be better off putting its chess club in pads than starting a borderline sociopath behind center. He would be too distracted by cheerleaders (and their pom-poms, probably) to be a kicker or punter. He’s more of a dummy than a defensive lineman. There’s too much responsibility in being a center, and tackles are freaks, but not in the Glen Bishop kind of way. 

With a little therapy and a lot of coaching, however, Glen Bishop could be a serviceable guard, given what we know about the boy. When he wants to be, he is protective. (That’s one way to interpret his relationship with Sally.) He has the appropriate body, and his muddy threads prove he’s not afraid to mix it up at the line of scrimmage. We’ve long stopped trying to predict the menacing schemes that run through his head, but while he’s in uniform, the idea of pancaking another human must be tantalizing. He would have to work on his conditioning—more spinach, less Lucky Strike—but who’s to say he couldn’t one day wear a varsity jacket? Even in 1965, no one ever forbid athletes from being creepy. And at the very least, starting Glen Bishop at, oh, left guard would give Ossining’s tailbacks an excuse to run right. That is: away from him.